A House panel has approved the substitute bill for the emancipation of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) from P58 billion worth of debt stemming from the award of agricultural lands under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Giving its nod to the substitute bill during a public hearing on Wednesday, Nov. 9 was the Committee on Agrarian Reform chaired by Ifugao lone district Rep. Solomon Chungalao.

The measure is the House of Representatives' response to President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.’s call to Congress to pass a law that would free the ARBs--who are mostly farmers--from their debts.

Emancipation means to be set free.

If the measure gets enacted, the concerned ARBs would no longer have to pay P58 million worth of debt to the government.

In the same hearing, Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda promised that the Committee on Ways and Means, which he chairs, would act with dispatch on the tax provisions of the unnumbered substitute bill, which was a consolidation of House Bills (HB) Nos. 2182, 2393, 2550, 3409, 3434, 3490, 3787, 3797, 4333, 5126 and 5206.

Salceda is the principal author and sponsor of the administration version of the bill,

“I thank Chairman Chungalao and the Committee on Agrarian Reform for its expeditious action on the measure. On my part, I commit that the House Committee on Ways and Means will hear the tax provisions, without delay.

"We will have this on third reading before the end of the month. We will comply with the President’s request that we pass this measure by the end of the year,” Salceda said.

The Bicolano described the measure as “potentially PBBM’s (Marcos) biggest policy achievement in 2022", adding that "It could change the game for our long-suffering and long-stagnating rural communities.”

Salceda, an economist, argued that the CARP needs a “major shakeup and this landmark measure might just be it".

“CARP without adequate support services and with limited capital or entrepreneurship among farmer-beneficiaries is shown to have reduced agricultural productivity in CARP lands by as much as −34.1 percent compared to baseline. This has resulted in almost P418 billion in lost productivity for all CARP lands every year (for the 10.3 million hectares of CARP land)," he said.